First Days in Korea

I apologize for the slowness of getting to this first post. I don't have a computer with me here in Korea (not a working one yet, anyway - I brought my desktop computer with me but haven't set it up yet) and until last night internet was very spotty as I had been trying to mooch free Wi-Fi with limited success. My neighbor/co-teacher, who is actually the guy I will be replacing, gave his Wi-Fi password though so I can finally post without it taking forever.

Korea is strange in a lot of unexpected ways. There's so much that's so familiar; western chain stores like Starbucks, Domino's, McDonald's and even 7-11 are everywhere. It couldn't have been easier getting to Cheonan from Incheon Airport. The bus terminal was right there at the arrivals area and it was really easy to get a ticket on the right bus to come here. There was a tv in the little bus shelter thing which was airing an American baseball game, with Korean announcers and stats and stuff all shown in Korean. I think car culture here is actually less foreign than when I was in England. Lots of Hyundai and Kia but also some Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, Ford and Chevy. I can't read most of the road signs and their traffic lights are turned sideways, but they drive on the right.

My neighborhood almost seems like an American movie parody of an Asian street. The school is literally one block from the apartment building (where all of us foreign English teachers live) and the tiny, narrow streets are covered in signs and storefronts. There's a coffee shop just below the school with Belgian waffles with nutella or jam or maple syrup for $2-3 and I'm told that's somewhat expensive, but I'm going to try that for lunch today. I had a tasty lunch yesterday at a restaurant across the street called Noodles Tree and a delicious spicy steamed bun full of pork and kimchi that was only a buck for dinner (sorry, no photos of that as I wolfed it down pretty quickly). There's also a nice grocery store around the corner where I can get essentials like bread and chicken breasts and milk and cereal. The language barrier is tough of course but things in general are familiar enough that I don't think I'll have much trouble getting by.

The school is pretty cool. It takes up the second floor of the building it's in and has eight classrooms, a little library, the director's office, the teachers' room and a kitchen. They serve dinner for students and staff but apparently none of the other teachers eat it - definitely warrants further investigation. All of the other teachers seem really cool so far, both the two Americans and the two English people and the Korean teachers we work with. The young kids are super enthusiastic and energetic and seem to mostly like going to school. One little girl even started crying like crazy when she learned that Dan, the guy from Minnesota I'm replacing, is leaving in a week.

For now, they've got me temporarily holed up in an empty apartment in the building with the other teachers and I don't have much in here just yet. I'll have to check out Dan's apartment to see what kind of stuff I'll be inheriting from him and what I'll need to buy. I can't wait to have a place here that feels like home instead of just a futon mattress in a corner and a bathroom, y'know?

Sorry for the lame formatting and brevity of this post. It's a pain trying to do this from a phone so hopefully I'll have a real computer set up soon.